Welcome to Panic!
by xTroublesomePersonx
Summary: A collection of short stories for Full Metal Panic! It will mostly be Sousuke/Kaname, but other characters and pairings will be included, too.
1. Captain

**A/N:**

**This is a collection of short stories for Full Metal Panic! Yes, these seems to be the only kinds of FMP stories out there at the moment, and I wish I could contribute with something more, but so far, my attempts at writing more than drabbles for this fandom have failed miserably. So, in the end, I decided I'm just going to stick with the drabbles. At the moment, there aren't very many of them, but I hope to write some more in the future; however, I'll probably only write these when I have time and am bored, so updates will most likely not be very frequent. But still, any kind of feedback will be very much appreciated! (: Enjoy!**

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**1\. Captain**

Teletha Testarossa, Captain of the Tuatha de Danaan, had from the beginning felt that she hadn't chosen her work and title, as much as her work and title had chosen her.

She was a Whispered, perhaps even one of the most powerful Whispered. She was intelligent, her brain and intellect superior to most people on this planet. And she was strong, her force and competence making her one of the most capable leaders in the organization.

But she would like to think that it wasn't her Whispered abilities, her intellect, or even her strength that had made her a perfect candidate for this position. She believed that what had had the biggest impact on her fitness to be Captain on the Tuatha de Danaan was her compassion, consideration and her belief in others.

Teletha Testarossa was well aware that though her commanding officers were pleased with her Whispered abilities, her intelligence, and skilled leadership, they were less happy with those other qualities. She knew that what she considered to be compassion and belief, they considered to be weakness and naiveté.

Still, Teletha Testarossa valued those traits in herself. She knew that it was her intelligence and strength that had gained her the respect of her crew, but it was her considerate nature that had gained her their trust. And on the battlefield, trust was much more important than respect. On the battlefield, trust was what made people fight to the bitter end for what they believed in.

Of course, this point of view was what often made people question her fitness to be Captain.

"Are you sure that you're a real Captain?" people would ask her.

"You know…" she would respond. "It hurts when people say that."

After all, Captain of the Tuatha de Danaan, Teletha Testarossa hadn't chosen her work and title. But her Whispered abilities, her intelligence, her strength, her compassion, and her belief in others had made her the perfect candidate for such a position. And so, her work and title had known to choose her.

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**A/N: Just a short story on Tessa's thoughts of her fitness to be Captain. Even if she does sometimes seem to be tired of her job, with all the strains, losses, and tragedies that come with it, I think that in the end, she really does believe that it's what she was meant to do with her life. Please review!**


	2. Waiting For You

**2\. Waiting For You**

Sousuke had been on a lot of missions. All of them had held horror or terror. And as most of these missions thankfully had begun to fade from his memory, there were still some missions he knew that he would never forget.

One of them was the mission to protect Kaname Chidori. Sousuke had failed from the start; firstly, because he couldn't keep up his disguise, and secondly, because he couldn't protect her properly. Luckily, he had steadied himself and managed to save her in the end.

Another one was the mission to resign from that same duty of protecting Kaname. Sousuke had failed even worse this time than he did the first time around, because this time, he had somehow managed to fail Kaname, Mithril, and himself all at once. But as fate would have it, he had pulled himself together at the last second, saved Kaname, completed his mission for Mithril, and found himself again.

Despite their horrid beginnings, those missions had both ended in bliss. But there were other missions that hadn't ended quite as happily. One of those miserable missions was the one he had been on in Helmajistan. There had been so much meaningless bloodshed. Sousuke remembered his conversation with one of his teammates. _"Do you have someone waiting for you in Japan?"_ she had asked. _"No," _he had answered. _"Maybe."_ Surely, they had fought like there was no one waiting for either of them. Yet it hadn't been enough. Gauron had wiped out the entire team. Only Sousuke had survived. He would never forget the sight of that battlefield, where one of his teammates had self-destructed, another one had been blown up, and yet another one had been stabbed and all but crucified on a rock.

Sousuke had been on a lot of missions. All of them were horrible. Some of them could be forgotten. Others would haunt him forever. Still, he had kept taking these missions, taking the bloodshed, taking the nightmares. But things had changed.

Sousuke looked at the photograph he had taped to the control panel inside the Arbalest. Kaname smiled back at him from the picture, striking a silly pose. _"Good luck,"_ she had written across it. _"Take care out there. I'll be waiting for you back home."_ Sousuke had been extremely surprised when she had handed it to him. But he had also been extremely happy. This was the first time he had ever had someone waiting for him, missing him, caring if he made it out or not.

_Yes_, things had surely changed. Before, he had fought for nothing but to keep himself alive. But now, he had something real to fight for. Now, there was someone waiting for him.

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**A/N: Just a short story on Sousuke reflecting upon his time as a soldier, and what it all adds up to now that Kaname is in his life. Please review!**


	3. Down for the Count

**3\. Down for the Count**

Kaname sighed heavily, as she tried to find a comfortable position on the hard wooden bench she was currently lying on. She looked up at the blue sky above, her view blocked only by the little group of trees surrounding the bench.

Despite its lack of comfort, the bench had become her sanctuary. It was where she came, whenever she needed to think something through. And as it turned out, being with Sousuke meant that Kaname often needed a lonesome place to think. Sighing once more, she let her mind dull with all the problems that they had had lately, and all the unpleasant thoughts that had come to her as a result. _Sousuke… _At the thought of her boyfriend's name, all the emotions that had boiled up inside her over the past couple of weeks washed over her. _I have tried so hard to make our relationship work!_ she fumed to herself. _But all he does is ruin all of it every time!_ She put her hands over her eyes and harshly rubbed her cheeks in defeat. _Sometimes, I wonder if this whole ordeal isn't just a complete waste of my time…_

"Kaname?"

Preoccupied as she was with her sinister thoughts, Kaname hadn't even noticed that someone had approached her. But at the sound of the familiar voice, she turned over on the bench and removed her hands from her face, only to see Kyoko standing in front of her with a handful of shopping bags and a worried look in her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Kyoko asked, moving closer, the worry in her eyes increasing.

At the sound of Kyoko's question Kaname merely sighed once again. "Kyoko…" she said, lifting her head up from the bench beneath her, and looking the other girl straight in the eye. "Do you think I'm making a mistake getting involved with Sousuke?" she asked bluntly.

Kyoko seemed surprised by the question for a moment, but then quickly collected herself. "No, Kaname, I don't think you're making a mistake," she said, a small smile curling the ends of her lips. Kaname lifted her head a little more up from the bench, her eyes holding a doubtful look. Kyoko's smile widened a little at her friend's expression, before she elaborated on her statement. "Sure, Sousuke does tend to behave strangely, and he does have a habit of inconveniencing you, but he really means well. Even if he does drive you up the wall most of the time, he only does so, because he loves you and wants the best things for you," she explained.

Kaname looked at her friend, her feelings of pessimism and quitting slowly fading away. Kyoko seemed to notice her increasingly optimistic mood, and went on with her explanation. "In my opinion, Sousuke is a really good boyfriend for you," she dared say with a soft smile. "No other guy would be as good to you as he is, or do as much for you as he does, and especially not put up with as much crap from you as he does." Kyoko's smile became wider. "You're a handful, Kaname. And I don't think that anyone but Sousuke would be able to deal with that for a long time and still love you in the end."

Kaname huffed. "Thanks, Kyoko," she said, half thankfully, half sarcastically, a small smile starting to form on her lips as well.

Seeing the hint of a smile on Kaname's face, Kyoko grinned. Kyoko grinned at her. "Face it, Kaname," she told her jokingly. "You're such a total flake that no one without extensive military training is able to keep up with you for long!"

Kaname made a face. "Again…" she said sarcastically, "… Thanks, Kyoko!" Still, she couldn't suppress the smile that was starting to form on her lips. Kaname often found that no matter how down she was, Kyoko always managed to say the right things, and say them in the right way, cheering her up immensely. _No matter how big an idiot Sousuke is once in a while_, she thought, her smile wide, _Kyoko is right. He wouldn't even be the one for me, if he weren't such a nutcase. Just like I wouldn't be the one for him, if I weren't exactly the same. _She shook her head, though her smile still widened. _Kyoko surely has an interesting way of making me feel better!_

"You're welcome!" Kyoko said, laughing now that her friend was once again smiling. "You know I'm always here for you."

Coming to sit up on the bench, Kaname defiantly stuck her tongue out through her grinning mouth. "Oh, shut up, Kyoko."

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**A/N: Loosely inspired by Starzki's wonderful story, "What if". Even if I'm not completely satisfied with this short story, I still thought it was rather sweet, so I decided to upload it after all. Please review!**


	4. Home is Where the Heart is

**4\. Home is Where the Heart is**

"Seriously, Sousuke," Kaname said, as she took a stack of blankets out of the closet in her living room, "when are you going to learn that you can't just blow things up?"

Sousuke, covered in soot, missing most of his eyebrows, and wearing only part of a very damaged shirt, looked at her from his position on her couch. "Under the current circumstances, I didn't have other appropriate options available," he told her sternly. "As I was positive that an unwelcome intruder had invaded my living quarters, possibly with the intention of extracting information from me through painful and deadly methods, I had to protect myself and the information I'm in possession of…"

"So you decided to blow up your apartment," Kaname ended his long monologue for him in a tired voice. She made her way over to the couch and placed the blankets on the table. Sousuke nodded sternly in affirmative, making Kaname sigh heavily and rub her temples in fatigue and exasperation. "Sousuke, did it ever occur to you that it might cause more damage to blow up your apartment than to just go check if something was wrong?" She pushed the blankets across the table and into Sousuke's sooty hands. "Do you have any idea how much time and effort it's going to take your superiors and colleagues to get everything sorted out?" Kaname sent him a hard look. "You _blew up _your apartment! Now, they need to clean up after you, and make up a good lie to keep you out of trouble, not to mention that they have to find you a new place to stay and restore all of your belongings!"

Sighing heavily, Kaname let herself fall down on to the couch next to the soot-covered Sousuke, who sent her a thoughtful look. "You're right," he said, somewhat reluctantly. "I realize that I have caused some problems for my superiors, and that I regret." His eyes intensified. "But while I regret to have inconvenienced my superiors, I cannot regret performing my duty and doing what I believed was necessary to protect you and keep you safe from harm." He leaned in a little closer. "You must understand that you are my top priority. I have to secure your safety at any cost. Nothing will ever again prevent me from doing what is needed to protect you and be by your side."

Kaname looked into his intense stare, her cheeks turning slightly pink. Not wanting him to see her blush, she looked away, and crossed her arms securely over her chest. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," she mumbled. "You still blew up your freaking apartment! And now, you have no place to stay!" She turned to him again, and pointed an accusing finger at his forehead. "You're lucky that I'm nice enough to let you stay here!"

Sousuke looked at her in surprise for a moment, but then his face softened. "Affirmative," he said. "I'm entirely grateful for your hospitality."

Kaname huffed. "You should be," she told him, though, when she saw the soft look on his face, she couldn't keep her own features from softening a little as well. "Oh, well…" she said with a sigh. "You blew up your own home, because you wanted to protect me. I suppose I kind of owe it to you to stay here."

Sousuke looked at her with a thoughtful expression, though his face remained soft. "While I agree to having blown up my living quarters, I'm afraid I must kindly reject your conceptualization of it as my home." Kaname blinked in surprise, and Sousuke elaborated. "I've never really had a place that I referred to as home. I never thought of the apartment as my home, either. It was really just a house where I stayed out of convenience." Sousuke looked up and around Kaname's apartment, still with a thoughtful look on his face. "However, I'm not very concerned with finding a certain place that I can call home," he said, turning back to her with a serious expression and an intense look in his eyes. "The most important thing to me is that I can be near you. All I require is the ability to be by your side, to protect you, and keep you safe."

Kaname looked into his eyes, her cheeks once again turning pink from the intensity of his gaze. Looking away and clearing her throat, she responded: "Well, in that case, I suppose that means that my home is now your home, too."

"Affirmative," Sousuke said. "Considering that this is already the closest place to home for me, and taking into account that I will be staying here for a while, not to mention the unparalleled guarding possibilities it provides for me, I would say that that's an appropriate statement."

Kaname blinked in mild surprise at his statement. "This is the closest place to home for you?" she asked.

Sousuke nodded with a serious expression. "Affirmative," he confirmed. "As I have never had a home and therefore never known what constitutes such an arrangement, on an earlier occasion I took the liberty to research the subject. And the conclusion I could draw from my research was that a home was a stable location where one felt safe and loved." Sousuke's eyes seemed surprisingly deep for a moment, and Kaname suddenly found herself unable to look away. "While the different hideouts, military bases, and submarines where I have spent most of my life have provided me with a somewhat stable place to be, none have provided the sense of stability that this place has, just as none has made me feel as indispensable as this place."

Kaname stared at Sousuke in astonishment, a small smile slowly starting to form on her lips. "That seems like an appropriate conclusion," she told him in an usually low and soft voice. She reached out a hand and with one finger gently stroked the places on his face where his eyebrows used to be. "I suppose it is as they say," she continued, trailing her finger down to the tip of his nose. "Home is where the heart is."

Sousuke looked at her in complete confusion, puzzled from her calm behavior and soft touches as much as her words. "What do you mean by that?" he asked her in perplexity.

At that, Kaname couldn't stop her face from breaking out in a big grin. Her finger still resting on his nosetip, she took the chance to swat him hard over the nose with one hand, before curling up next to him on the couch, leaning her head comfortably on his shoulder. "Oh, nothing," she told him, a small smile still on her lips, ignoring his total bafflement. "Nothing at all."

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**A/N: After a long time of trying to write a full-length story based on this concept, I simply gave up and decided to publish it in drabble-form. I hope that it works just as well. And I hope you liked it! Please review! **


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